One of the most common practices for controlling undesirable plant species is the use of herbicides. However, it is known that when certain herbicides are applied in effective amounts they may also damage the crop plants. For example, certain herbicides which are effective against certain annual and perennial grass weeds cannot be used in all crops, especially cereal crops such as corn, wheat, sorghum, oat, barley and rice because the herbicide injures the crops as well as controls the weeds.
Therefore, research efforts continue to discover and develop compounds which reduce or eliminate herbicidal injury to cereal crops.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,309,210 and 4,414,020 describe methods for safening crops from injury caused by herbicides. However, the safener compounds disclosed in those patents are outside the scope of the present invention.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for protecting cereal crops from injury caused by a herbicidally effective amount of a herbicide.
It is also an object of this invention to provide safener compositions.
Those and other objects of the present invention will become more apparent from the detailed description thereof set forth below.